Print - Week 3 Reflection

Week three has yet again been a very busy yet constrcutive week, spent mostly in the print room creating a selective body of screen print work, as well as working with photoshop and digitally scanned motifs to create a series of digital designs.

As my time progressed in the print room i tried to introduce new techniques to my designs, I began to layer up prints by using different colours and masking out areas of a design to add depth and body, as well as experimenting with a variety of fabrics. I particularly enjoyed using transfer paper, cutting out shapes from my designs and then ironing the cut paper onto fabric, so that when I conducted the print, a large area of the fabric was dyed, leaving whole shapes that i then continued to print over using the detailed design, masking areas to add multiple colours, which in whole resulted in one of my favourite and most successful prints.

One of the main things I discovered after I had created a number of prints, was the difficulty I was having with actually combining two of the main colours in my palette, red and green. As they are contrasting colours, it was difficult to introduce them into the same print, which I think was mainly due to the fact that the screen prints I where conducting embodied solid, bold colours, so there was no leeway to alter tone or introduce connecting colours to blend. So in the end as a look over the prints I created, each print either poses the red, orangey tones from my colour palette or multiple shades of green.

It wasn't until I became fully involved in my digital designs that I could begin to overcome the colour problem I had experienced in the print room. As photoshop allowed me to add layers, effects and opacities to my designs, I was able to include the two colours effectively in one design. I have worked with photoshop before to create digital designs, so I was happy to be able to unload these skills again, as well as learning new ones in our taught sessions. Overall I am very pleased with the designs I was able to create in the limited time frame, I enjoy the speed in which photoshop can allow you to work at, creating a multitude of designs in a shorter space of time. However, If i have the time to go back  over some of my designs, I would try darken the colours, to create a more earthy, organic feel.